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Ford has release the latest in their Overdubs series of commercials and this one features the entire cast of Sailor Moon. We previously reported on the first commercial, starring Stephanie Sheh and Michelle Ruff as Sailor Moon and Luna. This one has Stephanie Sheh as Sailor Moon, Kate Higgins as Sailor Mercury, Cristina Vee as Sailor Mars, Amanda C. Miller as Sailor Jupiter and Cherami Leigh as Sailor Venus. Watch the clip below.

The original episode this footage comes from is Sailor Moon R episode 72, Rubeus the Heartless: The Tragic Sisters. We can tell this by the fact that they are fighting on a bridge against Petz and Calaveras. Following this altercation they are healed with Sailor Moon’s Silver Crystal. It makes me wonder how they got that Ford Fusion up to the upper part of that bridge…

The latest English dubbed episode of Sailor Moon Crystal is now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter, is all about Makoto and her secrets. It focuses on her relationship with Ittou Asanuma, a boy who is himself infatuated with Mamoru. The villain this week is Petz of the Specter Sisters.

We get a bit of backstory about Makoto’s parents who died in a plane crash. They are seen in a photo and Makoto’s mother looks just like Brock from Pokémon. The timeline doesn’t really make sense if this were a real thing, plus there are no Pokémon in the world of Sailor Moon, but it’s fun to think about these things!

Next week is Act 18 – Invasion – Sailor Venus. In this episode we will see the Shitennou once more!

The first full episode from the Black Moon Clan story arc is now available to view in English on Hulu and Neon Alley. Act 15, Infiltration – Sailor Mars, introduces us to a bunch of character from the Black Moon Clan including Rubeus, Demande, Esmeraude, Saphir and the Ayakashi Sisters. This episode focuses mainly on the rivalry between Sailor Mars and Koan. Many new voice actors are showing up this week, who are all reprising their roles from the new English dub of the original Sailor Moon anime. Those actors are:

This week also gives us a better look at Chibiusa who first showed up at the end of Act 14. Amongst some background character we see a boy who looks an awful lot like Heero Yuy from Gundam Wing. What do you think?

Last month Viz announced the voice actors you’ll be hearing as part of Viz’s new dub of Sailor Moon R once the Black Moon Clan shows up. You can currently listen to the dub of episode 60, which features the voices of Rubeus and the Ayakashi Sisters. We will be getting a lot more of these voices tomorrow as we get the dubbed versions of episodes 61 through 68 on Hulu and Neon Alley as part of the Mini Moonlight Party. The voices of Esmeraude, Saphir and Prince Demande will not be showing up as part of the first half of the season so we won’t be hearing them until later this year.

These are mostly newly cast actors with the exception of Cindy Robinson who was previously cast as Queen Beryl and is now voicing Berthier. The cast of Viz’s new dub of the original Sailor Moon anime will be reprising their roles in Sailor Moon Crystal so we will be hearing these same voice actors once the second story arc of Sailor Moon Crystal gets dubbed.

Yesterday we even received a Tweet from Rena Strober (credited as Rena S. Mandel) to let us know that she’s currently working on dubbing Esmeraude! We can’t wait to hear what she sounds like.

The latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter, is now available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico. This week we get introduced to Petz as she faces off with Sailor Jupiter. This gives us a chance to delve into Makoto’s tragic past.

This episode has been changed from the next episode preview. As I mentioned in the review of the last episode, Chibiusa was seen wearing a short sleeve dark blue uniform which does not match what is usually seen in the manga or original anime. Chibiusa has two main outfits. This new short sleeved uniform is from her new school and has a white top. Her original blue uniform which she brings with her from the future has long sleeves. Whenever the blue uniform is seen with short sleeves this is a mistake. This has been updated in this episode to reflect the correct colours. I feel like this must have been a last minute correction as can be seen in these comparison shots between the original blue inform from the episode preview at the end of Act 16 and the updated white uniform from Act 17.

There is still one instance of the incorrect colours that comes through in this episode. When Chibiusa is walking through the street she is seen wearing a white top at first and as she leaves the frame her top turns blue. No doubt all of this confusion is because the animators sometimes see blue as white, as occurred during dressgate.

Chibiusa is seen using Luna P for all sorts of trivial purposes such as cheating at the crane game or making an umbrella with a bunch of birds. She also excels at the Sailor V game. Makes sense since she’s from the future and has more experience with games than people who were, by the original ages shown in the manga, born in the late 70s. We get to see a Tuxedo Mask doll in the opening scene, the puppet from last week’s episode, as well as a couple of Sailor V dolls. How odd it must be for these people to live in a world full of merchandise made after themselves.

A URL is seen on a poster for the Sailor V video game. The complete URL is not seen but we can see the partial URL “orV.gamecenter_news.jp”. This is either part of a URL along the lines of http://sailorv.gamecenter_news.jp or an e-mail address ending with a similar domain name. Whatever it might be this is an invalid URL or e-mail address. An underscore is not a valid character in a domain name. These must include only letters, numbers or dashes.

We unfortunately do not see a glimpse of Sailor Pluto in this episode. The manga shows a very brief look at her as Chibiusa thinks back to Abracadabra, the words which activated Luna P. We will have to wait until Act 19 to get a proper look at her. Another character who does not appear once again is Motoki’s sister Unazuki. Although she appeared in a cameo in Act 3 all of her subsequent appearances in the manga have been omitted from Sailor Moon Crystal.

We do get to see Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion who look just like Usagi and Mamoru. There seems to be less of an attempt to mask their identity here than there was in the original Sailor Moon anime. It can easily be inferred from this episode that Chibiusa is in fact Mamoru and Usagi’s daughter.

Makoto brings Ittou Asanuma back to her apartment and tells him about how her parents died in a plane crash. We get to see a picture of her parents. Her father bears a striking resemblance to Brock from Pokémon. Included above is a drawing of Brock I made back in the 90s. One difference from the manga is that Ittou Asanuma doesn’t mention Mamoru’s super powers, as he overhears him talk about sensing Chibiusa’s thoughts and feelings through touch. He did catch Luna talking, which was only a matter of time since she doesn’t do a great job of hiding the fact that she can talk! Makoto seems to very easily share her secret about being a super hero to him, then gives him a fairly innocent kiss on the forehead.

This episode’s enemy is Petz, the third of the Ayakashi Sisters. The pseudoscience this time around is crop circles. For whatever reason this story arc is riddled with pseudoscience, previously covering fortune telling and dowsing, now touching on crop circles. The paranormal explanations, and the one given in this series, is that crop circles are the result of alien crafts. In reality no such elaborate explanation is necessary as crop circles have been quite definitely proven to be man made.

As with other episodes we wrap up with a Sailor Guardian being kidnapped and an Ayakashi Sister being killed. Sailor Jupiter is now a prisoner of the Black Moon Clan and Petz is now dead.

Coming up next, on March 21st, is Act 18, Invasion – Sailor Venus. This episode will introduce us to Chibiusa’s class mate Momoko. The enemy will be Calaveras who is channeling Rubeus, following in the tradition of the Black Moon Clan practicing things which are no supported by science. Unlike previous episodes however it seems like her channeling of Rubeus is nothing more than an elaborate scam to con the general public. This is consistent with the real world where channeling is not real and used exclusively by charlatans and delusional people.

Keep reading for more screenshots from this episode and the next episode preview for Act 18.

The next episode of Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 17, Secret – Sailor Jupiter, will be available this coming Saturday March 7th starting at 7pm Japan Standard Time which is 5am Eastern Time and 2am Pacific Time. The show will be available on Crunchyroll, Hulu and Niconico.

As the title mentions, this episode is all about Sailor Jupiter. She will face off against Petz this week and if the episodes titled after Sailor Mars and Mercury are any indication, it won’t turn out well for her! This week’s pseudoscience is crop circles which in this context are made by alien crafts but in reality they are made by people. We should be seeing a brief glimpse of Sailor Pluto and a decent look at Unazuki in this episode. Makoto will take Ittou Asanuma to her apartment, tell him all about the tragedy that causes her to live alone and maybe tell him all about her and her friends’ super powers.

Tired of getting up early? This Sunday Daylight Saving Times starts in some cities in North America but not Japan, so as of episode 18 many viewers will be getting their new episodes at 6am Eastern Time again.

As I will be out of the country attending PAX East 2015 this coming weekend I am unsure of when I will be able to watch and review the upcoming episode. My review may be later than usual this week.

The latest episodes of Sailor Moon R are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week with episodes 85 and 86 we finally get to see Black Lady, the evil version of Chibiusa. We also get a brief look at Saphir and Petz’s relationship.

Episode 85, The Dark Queen: Birth of Black Lady, introduces us to the older incarnation of Chibiusa. Wise Man is all about exploiting people to serve his purposes and Chibiusa is a prime candidate. You see at one point everyone forgot her birthday, so that’s a good reason to make her evil. Wise Man perverts her memories not by directly fabricating them but simply by being selective about what he allows her to remember. The twisted version of the past that he shows her paints her parents and the other Sailor Guardians are mean careless people who don’t care about her birthday. In these scenes we get a nice look at the future versions of the Sailor Guardians. Here they appear to go about their daily business in their transformed state, referring to each other by their planet names. Is this their true forms in the future? In a world where they don’t need to pretend to be normal girls, do they simply act as Sailor Guardians 24/7? Do they sleep in these outfits? Anyway, Black Lady. She is an evil and older version of Chibiusa. She even makes Luna P evil! But this doesn’t last all that long as within an episode Sailor Moon uses the Silver Crystal to restore Chibiusa’s original memories. It turns out it was a surprise party after all! This reminds me of that episode of My Pet Monster where Monzie returned to Monster Land thinking his friends forgot his birthday. If TV has taught me anything it’s that if your friends pretend to forget about your birthday it’s actually because they are planning a wicked surprise party for you! Anyway Black Lady is on her way to being healed when Wise Man makes her evil again. What a jerk! At least now she might have a chance to make out with her dad.

Episode 86, Saphir Dies: Wiseman’s Trap, continues the Japanese tradition of not caring even a little about spoilers in their titles. Yes, Saphir dies in this episode. Saphir is a bit sneaky and overhears Wise Man sloppily talking to himself about how he’s evil and wants to destroy the world and doesn’t really care about the plight of the oppressed Black Moon Clan like he’s been pretending. Saphir takes a piece of technology that the Evil Black Crystal needs and runs off to the past, getting injured by Wise Man in the process. It turns out he used to have a relationship with Petz, so he goes to see her. Demande is starting to suspect and so Saphir is determined to clear things up which doesn’t work out as Wise Man kills him. This leaves Demande quite suspicious and heartbroken at the death of his brother. Petz is also heartbroken as is Usagi who has just recently learned of Saphir’s existence. Black Lady doesn’t do all that much in this episode but she is hanging around in the background still not making out with her father.

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The next wave of Sailor Moon Petit Chara figures has been revealed on the Sailor Moon Official Site. The new figures include the Ayakashi Sisters Koan, Berthier, Calaveras and Petz as well as Sailor Moon with her Cutie Moon Rod which she had during the Black Moon Clan arc of the manga which was the Sailor Moon R season of the anime. These figures will be released in June 2015.

In the past Petit Chara figures, a line of Super Deformed blind box figures by MegaHouse, have all been of heroes. The first set had Sailor Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus as well as Tuxedo Mask. The second set contained Super Sailor Moon, Sailor Chibi Moon, Sailor Pluto, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. The third set included civilian uniform versions of Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto, Minako and Mamoru. There are usually 6 figures to a set, with 6 of them being packaged in one box. Expressions vary so while a set will have all 6, each figure has one of two facial expressions. A Princess Serenity figure that is not part of a set will be released on Amazon on February 18th. It’s unknown who might included as the 6th figure in this set, if there even is one, or if they will have different facial expressions. It seems a bit odd to include these characters but not other villains such as those from the Dark Kingdom story arc. This may simply be due to the fact that Sailor Moon Crystal will soon be showcasing these characters, though by June the Black Moon Clan story arc will be nearly complete and the Ayakashi Sisters will be long dead.

I bought the first two sets of these figures and found them to be very nice. They’re small and easy to display. A minor amount of assembly is required but they hold together well and the included stand will make sure they don’t keep falling over.

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The latest two episodes of Sailor Moon R were added to Hulu and Neon Alley this Monday morning. This week we see episodes 71 and 72 which deal with the fate of the rest of the Ayakashi sisters Berthier, Petz and Calaveras. These episodes were the last two included in DiC’s original dub of Sailor Moon. Following these was a lengthy break of a couple of years before the next episodes were finally dubbed. For a lot of people who watched Sailor Moon in the mid 90s and grew out of it, these were probably the last episodes they watched!

Episode 71, For Friendship: Ami vs. Bertheir, is all about chess. Ami has been hanging out as this chess tower which is shaped like a giant rook. Berthier, of the Ayakashi sisters, who happens to have a very similar power as Sailor Mercury also happens to have a similar interest in chess! It made a bit more sense that Koan happened to face off against Sailor Mars twice since she simply attacked the shrine she lived and worked at twice but the coincidence of Berthier encountering Ami twice is a bit silly. Regardless, a fierce all or nothing chess game is played and amped up with some magical chess pieces that freeze the loser. Sailor Mercury wins, since she’s incredibly smart, and Berthier gives up on life. Having learned from the last episode that she can be healed, Sailor Moon heals Berthier and she’s happy with her sister Koan once again! Hooray!

Episode 72, Rubeus the Heartless: The Tragic Sisters, takes care of the last two Ayakashi sisters. The first event isn’t really relevant to the episode itself but has some importance in the next few episodes. As Sailor Moon and the rest of the Sailor Guardians transform Chibiusa is shoved in a closet type thing and sees them all transforming. This is a huge revelation for her as she always liked Sailor Moon but hated Usagi. Hard to reconcile these two things! Such are the perils of a secret identity. Finally when Chibiusa sees Sailor Moon use the Silver Crystal later in the episode Chibiusa realizes that she needs to get a hand on that thing to go back to the future to save her mother. The main plot of the episode has Petz and Calaveras fighting over this magic wand thing, nearly killing each other, and of course getting healed! Ultimately all four of the Ayakashi sisters are reunited and they open up “Beauty Quartette”, a small shop which sells beauty supplies. I’m not sure the business model is rock solid, as one person would easily have been able to run this small shop, but now these four are splitting the profits not to mention being stuck in 20th century Tokyo with no credit history, valid ID or a past. It won’t be easy making a life for themselves, but it’s probably better than trying to live on a dead, desolate prison planet.

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The two latest episodes of Sailor Moon R are now available on Hulu and Neon Alley. This week for episodes 65 and 66 we have the Sailor Guardians face off against Petz and Calaveras … twice.

Episode 65, Dispute Over Love: Minako and Makoto’s Conflict, has Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus sharing an episode! We recently saw Ami and Rei get their own episodes but I guess Makoto and Minako weren’t able to hold their own! Instead they fight with each other for a while, which is mimicked by Calaveras and Petz’s bickering and fighting in this same episode. Sailor Jupiter uses Sparkling Wide Pressure for the first time in the ensuing fight while Sailor Venus uses her Venus Love Me Chain for the first time. The Droid in this episode is made out of wine which is kind of cool!

Episode 66, Usagi’s Parental Love: the Curry Romance Triangle is all about making curry! We get a good look at the future version of Usagi and Mamoru in this episode. Normally when we see Crystal Tokyo in other episodes we see Neo Queen Serenity and King Endymion all decked out in their royal garb. Here we seem to be seeing them in civilian clothes, though those are fairly fancy clothes. Chibiusa thinks a lot about her parents as she gets close to Usagi and Mamoru. So right. Curry. Chibiusa needs to make curry for a school curry party. Is this a thing in Japan? In North America we do pot lucks but diversity is the key. Having a pot luck where everyone brings the same food is a bit of a waste of time. Whatever. Usagi, Chibiusa and Mamoru go to Juban Super, the supermarket in Azuba Juban, to get some meat. Too bad Calaveras and Petz took over the supermarket and turned all of the patrons into zombies! Unfortunately the zombies’ black skin makes it look a bit like all of the zombies are really just dark skinned minorities.

Finally Chibiusa and Mamoru ditch Usagi and run into Rei. Rei reluctantly agrees to help them make curry, but ultimately Chibiusa decides to go back to Usagi. This makes us wonder what the Curry Romance Triangle mentioned in the title actually is. Is it Chibiusa/Mamoru/Usagi? This love triangle is always a problem and at the heart of the Sailor Moon R series, culminating in some rather incestual behaviour between Black Lady and Tuxedo Mask. The other love triangle here is the Usagi/Mamoru/Rei combo. Rei and Mamoru were a legitimate couple in the first season, something which ended abruptly when Mamoru was mortally wounded, regained memories of a past life and then was turned evil. The Moonlight Knight only recently gave Mamoru his memories of him and Rei’s relationship back at which point there was an assumed romance between him and Usagi, but the choice was never really presented to him. We can see Rei’s obvious hesitation at getting in the middle of existing relationships. Where does this hesitation come from? Does she not want to take Usagi’s place in her relationship with Chibiusa or is is that she’s worried she may rekindle some old feeling between herself and Mamoru? Luckily Mamoru is wearing the absolute worst shirt so there’s no risk of a hot girl like Rei falling for that!

This is supposed to be one of those mosquito repellent things, right?

Next week is episode 67, The Beach, the Island and a Vacation: The Guardians’ Break, which was not previously dubbed into English or released in Viz’s subbed only set.